She was a divine
woman, he said to himself; the sweetest and noblest, he was certain,
that the world would ever see.
Her plans were these:
First, that having had twenty-one years of life at the top of the
social ladder she was now going to get down and spend the next
twenty-one at the bottom of it. (Here she gave her reasons, and I will
not stop to describe Fritzing's writhings as his own past teachings
grinned at him through every word she said.)
Secondly, that the only way to get to the bottom being to run away
from Kunitz, she was going to run.
Thirdly, that the best and nicest place for living at the bottom would
be England. (Here she explained her conviction that beautiful things
grow quite naturally round the bottom of ladders that cannot easily
reach the top; flowers of self-sacrifice and love, of temperance,
charity, godliness--delicate things, with roots that find their
nourishment in common soil. You could not, said Priscilla, expect soil
at the top of ladders, could you? And as she felt that she too had
roots full of potentialities, she must take them down to where their
natural sustenance lay waiting.
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